💼Gender Diversity Helps Teams Maintain Integrity Under Pressure 💼

Picture a team meeting where the numbers just don’t add up. Finance projects are rosy, costs are creeping, and everyone knows the company needs a positive story. Do you speak up, or quietly “go along”?🤔

Economists call it a conflict of interest; employees call it “being a team player.” Incentives and group pressure push people toward the outcome that benefits them—even subconsciously—producing optimism bias. The question: how do you maintain honesty under pressure?😌

The research
A new study in the Journal of Banking and Finance analyzed 63,000 target-price forecasts from 3,400+ sell-side analysts at 364 investment banks over 11 years. The researchers found a striking pattern: teams with more women issued significantly less optimistic stock forecasts, particularly when the firm had the largest stake in the outcome.

• Increasing the proportion of women on a team by 8% reduced optimism bias by up to 12%.

• The effect wasn’t about women being individually more ethical; it was the team dynamic that changed.

• Analysts who moved to more gender-diverse teams adjusted their forecasts downward, proving causality: diversity drives integrity, not the other way around.

Why it matters
This is soft regulation in action. Simply adding women to a team reshapes behaviour organically, complementing formal compliance and training. The findings suggest that diversity isn’t just about optics or culture—it’s a practical lever to improve decision-making, reduce risk, and strengthen firm resilience.

So what?
Who’s in the room can be as important as the rules on the wall. Gender-diverse teams aren’t just “fairer”; they temper bias, produce more grounded decisions, and make ethical behavior the default. In high-stakes environments—finance, tech, AI development, or government policy—this isn’t a feel-good suggestion. It’s a strategic move that can protect organizations from blind spots, misallocated capital, and avoidable mistakes. Leaders who ignore the composition of their teams are leaving billions on the table—not in potential profits, but in integrity and risk mitigation.

Read more: Harvard Business Review

💻AI📲

Anthropic Pays Up: In what might be the biggest “oooo” in AI copyright history, Anthropic just agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a lawsuit with book authors. That’s $3,000 per work for 500,000 authors, for anyone keeping count. The crime? Downloading millions of books from shadow libraries like Library Genesis (we assume to train its models). Legal experts are calling it the AI industry’s Napster moment—and a stern reminder that pirated datasets are not a loophole📖

The court did rule that using legally acquired books for AI training is fair use, but the takeaway is clear: don’t steal your training data. Expect other AI companies to suddenly discover that licensing might be cheaper than legal drama. Cue OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft nervously checking their digital libraries.

Mistral’s Mega Round: Meanwhile, across the AI universe, Mistral AI just raised €1.7B at an €11.7B post-money valuation, led by semiconductor giant ASML. The goal? Develop frontier AI solutions that solve complex engineering challenges for industrial clients—basically, supercharging your chips and factories with AI brains. The round also brings in heavyweights like Andreessen Horowitz, NVIDIA, and DST Global💰

(NYT | Mistral)

📉 So what?

Anthropic’s $1.5B payout isn’t just a headline—it’s a wake-up call for the entire AI industry. The era of “grab any data online, train your model, hope no one notices” is over. Copyright holders are flexing, courts are paying attention, and companies will now have to budget for legality, not just compute power.

💰Tech Giants Pour Billions Into UK AI as Alphabet Hits $3 Trillion💰

Alphabet officially joins the $3 trillion club, a milestone that would make any investor’s spreadsheet blush. Shares jumped over 4% after a U.S. court ruled that Google had indeed held a monopoly—but don’t worry, no forced Chrome divestment this time. For regulators, it’s a half-win; for Alphabet, it’s champagne time. President Trump even weighed in, calling it “a very good day.”🎉

But the headlines only tell part of the story. Alphabet’s real challenge isn’t courtroom drama—it’s Gemini, its AI suite. OpenAI, Perplexity, and other upstarts are circling, and Alphabet needs more than market cap to stay relevant. Analysts are optimistic, predicting double-digit revenue growth if Gemini catches on—but a flop could see that $3 trillion valuation wobble.😏

While Alphabet celebrates in dollars and court rulings, the UK is suddenly the belle of the AI ball. Google is pumping £5bn into DeepMind, cloud, and jobs (8,250 a year, if you’re counting). Microsoft is not playing second fiddle either—$30bn over the next three years, including the UK’s biggest supercomputer. All this coincides with Trump’s visit, Downing Street photo ops, and handshakes that scream “look, we’re serious about AI.” Spoiler: it’s not just pomp; it’s the UK trying to convince the world it’s more than just tea and queues—it wants to be a global AI hub🤖

And Nvidia doesn't want to be left our with it also talking billions more with OpenAI and scale to expand data center capacity, all timed for Trump’s state visit. And given we're talking Open AI and money, turns our OpenAI company projects it will share only 8% of its revenue with commercial partners like Microsoft by the end of the decade, down from the current 20%  That’s over $50 billion in additional revenue for itself. Microsoft and OpenAI are still negotiating server rent fees, and OpenAI’s nonprofit arm is set to receive more than $100 billion under the current deal, making it one of the world’s best-funded nonprofits (If anyone wants to help us feel free too haha)😅

Sources / Read More:

1. Alphabet shares rise after U.S. court ruling

2. Google £5B AI investment in the U.K.

3. Microsoft $30B AI & supercomputing UK plans

4. Nvidia & OpenAI U.K. datacenter investment

5. OpenAI revenue sharing with Microsoft

📉 So what?

Alphabet hitting $3 trillion is a headline. Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI splurging in the U.K. is the subtext. The real story is that AI infrastructure is now a geopolitical sport,

💵Billions💷

Wall Street got a pink blush this week. Klarna, the Swedish buy-now-pay-later darling, made its U.S. debut, hitting a market valuation of $19 billion—down from the $45 billion SoftBank dreamt it was worth in 2021, but still enough to make investors feel like they’re in a Hollywood reboot of The Wolf of Wall Street. Shares popped 30% on opening, then drifted to $46, proving that even in fintech, the hype is faster than reality📈

Founded in 2005, Klarna’s claim to fame is letting shoppers pay in interest-free instalments. Over 100 million users in 26 countries seem fine with it, though skeptics worry about people spending money they don’t have. Last year, Klarna processed $105 billion in transactions and pulled in $2.8 billion in revenue, but profits are still elusive, with U.S. losses ticking up to $52 million in Q2.💸

Analysts argue Klarna isn’t really a lender—it’s a payment facilitator in fancy packaging. Sellers pay for the smooth checkout experience, consumers pay… in small instalments. It’s clever, convenient, and slightly terrifying for anyone who’s ever tried to stick to a budget💳

Meanwhile, across the pond in Europe, UK-based tech company Nothing just raised $200 million in a Series C round, hitting a $1.3 billion valuation and officially joining the unicorn club. Co-founder Carl Pei promises “AI-native devices” that will know each user better than their own mother—hyper-personalised operating systems, smartwatches, audio devices, maybe even robots and EVs. Nothing wants to challenge Apple, Google, and Amazon. Ambitious? Absolutely. Plausible? We’ll see if billion-unit-scale adoption happens before hype fatigue sets in.📈

• Klarna hits $19B in US debut

• Nothing raises $200M, Europe’s newest unicorn

🧠So what?

Klarna shows that you can survive years of losses as long as you’re convincing users to hand over their wallets in instalments, while Nothing proves that a vague promise of AI-enabled gadgets can still get you a unicorn crown. The bigger picture? Wall Street and VC culture still reward bold storytelling, design flair, and future-facing hype far more than actual profitability

🧠BTF Deep dive🧠

So as you know BTF is back but we wanted to highlight one mainstage session you wont want to miss, the one on the DEI pull back😮

Yep we're not going for corporate veneer (so much so, no one in a DEI role is speaking on it), so we can have an honest, and unfiltered conversation on what exactly we're seeing😐

If you don't know about the folks picked, take a look here and at their profile's and you'll understand why 
Ebele Okobi (Formerly but vows to never go back to Big tech,  Ex Open-Ai and Meta)
Abadesi Osunsade (Host of Techish)
Yassmin Abdel-Magied (Author of The Truth About Racism, TED's What does my headscarf mean to you? which was chosen as one of TED's top-ten ideas and author of Stand Up and Speak Out Against Racism
Hanna Naima McCloskey of Fearless Futures (Who has worked with a lot of the household names on "DEI")

🧠So what?

This session is deigned to put the ideas out there people don't feel like they can say 

📈 The tools behind the tech📉

📦Product📦

• Lessons on building an AI data analyst
  
•  SQL needs structure 
  

📏Design📏 

• Making a font of my handwriting

👩🏿‍💻Code👩🏿‍💻

• Writing Code is easy, reading it is hard

🏢The business behind the tech🏢

•  Does LLM Traffic Convert Better Than Organic? A New Data-Backed Study  

Progress in public

Learn about engineering, software, IT and more technical careers in the Civil Service

On the 24th September, we're joining forces with Government Digital and Data for our third webinar on careers in the Civil Service!

This time we're focusing on fantastic opportunities in:

Engineering, including: DevOps Engineers, Test Engineers, and Specialist Infrastructure Engineers;

Developers, including: Software Developers and Frontend Developers;

IT Professionals, including: Network Architects, Technical Architect, Data Architect;

Interaction Designer;

Service Transition Manager.

To help us understand what these roles could look like and how to grow your career in the public sector, we'll be joined by three inspiring individuals:

James Freeland - Senior Data Security Architect, GDS

Alexandra Pop - Senior Data Scientist, GDS

Jaabir Yusuf - Dev Ops Engineer, DWP

This is a great opportunity for anyone considering a career in the civil service to learn more about the job opportunities available, and how to successfully navigate the hiring process!

Check out the key details below: 

Date: 24th September 2025

Time: 12:00 - 13:30

Where: Zoom

If you’re interested in dialling into this webinar, then be sure to get a space using the link below: 

https://lu.ma/progressinpublicthree 

Voices in the shadow

We love what our awesome community partners, GTA Black Women in Tech, are building with The Voices in The Shadow. For too long, Black women have been underrepresented in tech, often left without role models to look up to.

This project changes that, by shining a light on powerful journeys and giving young Black girls the confidence to dream bigger.

This year, their theme is The Journey Within: I Am… a day designed for reflection, inspiration, and connection.

Choose one of five Fireside Chat sessions that speak to your journey:
I Am Reflection: Pause, reflect, and explore your story
I Am Realignment: Pivot with purpose, career, and life alignment
I Am Activation: Step boldly into leadership and action
I Am Affirmation: Speak life into your journey
I Am Self-Love: Celebrate joy, boundaries, and self-worth

The day closes with a Connection Hour, drinks, music, laughter, and the kind of conversations that spark real connection.

Key details below:
Date: Thursday, 2nd October
Time: 10:00 - 17:00
Location: Menier Lounger, 1st floor, 53 Southwark St, London SE1 1RU
 
As a bonus, Colorintech community members get 10% off tickets, and receive a complimentary copy of The Connection Journal. This is part of Volume 5 of The Voices in the Shadow series, this 12-week journal guides you through Reflection, Realignment, and Activation to help you connect with yourself, build balance, and achieve your goals without burnout.

Get your ticket using the link below:
https://lnkd.in/eAKjRR_K

The promo code should be automatically applied, but just in case it's:
'ColorInTech10'

Don’t miss this chance to celebrate, learn, and connect with inspiring Black women in tech!

Ai for the rest of us

We're super excited to be a community partner for the next AI for the rest of us's annual conference on the 15th & 16th October 2025! 
AI for the rest of us is an AI learning experience like no other, it's a two day conference filled with: Inspiring Keynotes; Real World Stories; Navigating Change; AI Explainers; Technical / Developer Track; and Hands on Workshops
Interested? Check out the key details below:
 Date: 15th - 16th October
 Time: 9:00 - 17:30 BST
 Location: London Museum Spaces
 Tickets: https://luma.com/AIfortherestofus25?coupon=COLORINTECH20

The link also includes an exclusive 20% off discount just for the Colorintech community! In case it doesn't come through, the discount code is: 'COLORINTECH20'

😃What we are consuming😃

😮 The last days of social media?

😅 Why aren't you a good fit